{"id":1198677,"date":"2023-11-01T09:00:43","date_gmt":"2023-11-01T13:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1198677"},"modified":"2023-11-01T09:00:43","modified_gmt":"2023-11-01T13:00:43","slug":"psyncs-genie-s-security-camera-uses-gpt-to-describe-what-it-sees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1198677","title":{"rendered":"Psync's Genie S security camera uses GPT to describe what it sees"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you ask Psync Labs, it\u2019ll tell you the problem with smart security cameras is that they don\u2019t know what they\u2019re seeing. Those motion pings you get with other products? Defined by how light shifts in front of its sensor, treating an approaching figure or low-flying bird with equal alarm. So, Psync\u2019s focus is to improve machine vision, but to also go one step further and pair this vision with GPT-enabled generative AI to help it, and you, understand what it can see. Its first product, the Genie S<\/a>, is a security camera that\u2019ll send you a written description of what (it thinks) is going on.<\/p>\n

On paper, the Genie S has a similar feature set to plenty of other affordable home security units I could mention. There\u2019s a powered pan-tilt base, five megapixel camera (outputting 2K Video), four LEDs, a microphone and speaker. But there are differences, like the fact it\u2019s in the shape of a cube that, when it\u2019s not activated, points the lens toward the base. Psync says it\u2019s the most compact camera in its class, but probably not by as big a margin as the company hopes. Setup is easy enough \u2013 put it on a table, or use the screw mount to place it somewhere more esoteric, plug in the six foot long USB-C cable, and you\u2019re on your way.<\/p>\n

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Psync says that a smarter camera will be better-equipped to capture what\u2019s going on at home, but that\u2019s not its best use case. VP of marketing Echo Wong says that the hardware is able to record those \u201cmemorable moments that fly by quicker than we can pull out our phones.\u201d But I don\u2019t think you would want to buy this on the off-chance it catches junior\u2019s first word or steps. The more prosaic sales line, the one that probably wouldn\u2019t fly as well, is that it\u2019s a security camera with the added promise of not bugging you with needless pings because of the promise of AI smarts.<\/p>\n

Buy one of these, and you\u2019ll get the choice of a unit with 32GB built-in storage for $35 or 64GB for $40. I mention this up-front because we\u2019re very much in \u201cyou get what you pay for\u201d territory in terms of the picture and sound quality. It shoots vertically-oriented 2K video but the clips are pretty fuzzy, even if you can zoom in to get some halfway useful detail if required. It doesn\u2019t like too much light, so if it\u2019s pointed at a window (and\/or anything reflective) then chunks of the image will get blown out. Similarly, the sound quality is something of a throwback to an earlier age of crunchy, over-compressed streams. You\u2019ll get similarly crunchy audio using the talk feature, which has similarly \u201cwalkie-talkie\u201d vibes that you won\u2019t find on pricier hardware.<\/p>\n

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Psync Labs <\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Of course, that\u2019s not what anyone is here for, but to see what this new company \u2014 of which little is known \u2014has cooked up with AI. ViewSay is Psync’s transcription tool<\/a> which uses GPT, a form of generative AI, to essentially let the camera describe in text what it’s seeing. ViewSay, which currently costs 99 cents a month, promises to identify objects, sort events that triggered the recording in a visual timeline, let you search through the clips with text and, of course, the aforementioned written pings. Pay, your fee, set this up, and your phone will ping when it spots something interesting, and give you the best description of what is going on that it can manage. Users can also set specific categories, like “Person,” “Vehicle,” “Pet” and will eventually be able to craft tailored alerts, like “a dog jumps on the couch” for alerts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Oh, but there is a catch \u2014 because that fairly reasonable 99 cents a month is just a limited-time trial, before leaping up to $7 a month. Which, we can all agree, is more than a little bit too much to spend on a product like this, especially in this economic climate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

ViewSay is currently in beta, and while the app splash to get you to sign up promises plenty, the company is keen to keep expectations low. My impression so far is that while Psync has the bones of a workable idea here in theory, the nitty-gritty of practice isn\u2019t. I pointed the camera at a neutral corner in my office and play-acted in front of it to see what it would do. My fake phone-call, where I learned that my (fictional) wife had discovered the secret to perpetual motion, went unremarked upon and undocumented. Well, kinda \u2013 the camera pinged my phone to say that \u201cA man is sitting in a chair in a room, looking at his reflection in a mirror.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Actually, I\u2019m being unfair \u2013 since the system can also make fairly accurate guesses at other times. Like, while I was setting the hardware up late one evening, I got a ping to tell me that \u201ca man is sitting on the floor, holding a cell phone in his hand.\u201d A few days later, I pointed the camera at a TV which was turned off, and the Echo Show that was in front of it. I then turned back to use my laptop \u2013 which I think was only really visible in the reflection on the TV\u2019s screen. Not long after, the app pinged to say it could see a \u201cA man is sitting in front of a laptop, looking at the screen, and possibly using it for work or entertainment purposes.\u201d Now, this was either a massively-lucky guess, a false positive or a sign of how accurate this will be in future.<\/p>\n

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Photo by Daniel Cooper \/ Engadget.<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

When it detects something going on in this manner, the system records a 12-second clip to its local storage. These clips are retained for at least 14 days, and when you\u2019ve looked at them in the app, you\u2019re also able to save them to your phone. I understand you\u2019ll also be able to take longer clips when motion is detected but that feature doesn\u2019t yet appear to be available. You\u2019ll also be able to share a live feed of your camera, using WebRTC, to up to four viewers \u2013 through a browser \u2013 for up to 30 minutes at a time. You might be wondering about how secure all of this is, and what exactly is happening to your data. Psync told me that its AI model is based on an AWS instance, and the footage is protected using 256-bit AES encryption. The footage recorded will be stored on the device locally, but the initial frame of the video is sent to the cloud for further analysis.<\/p>\n

As something of an AI skeptic, and someone who isn\u2019t thrilled at wiring up every corner of my home with a camera, I\u2019m by default hostile to Psync\u2019s plan here. But I can at least see where Psync is looking to add value to the standard security camera proposition. If you\u2019re out and about, and you get a ping saying there\u2019s a person in your living room, when there shouldn\u2019t be, then that\u2019s pretty helpful. Especially if you can just tune into the live feed and see for yourself what\u2019s going on and if you need to do something about it. As much as the macro story is scary, I can understand the logic someone would apply to buy one or two of these.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s worth saying too that what I just described isn\u2019t yet what Psync is selling, only what it is gesturing toward. The system will require more training, and plenty more data from a broader user base, until it can start offering you more concrete descriptions. Now, I\u2019m sure that in a year or two that will be the case, but until then, you\u2019re essentially buying into an ecosystem where you\u2019re paying for the privilege of being a beta tester.<\/p>\n

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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/psyncs-genie-s-security-camera-uses-gpt-to-describe-what-it-sees-130043520.html?src=rss
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\nSource: Engadget – Psync’s Genie S security camera uses GPT to describe what it sees<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you ask Psync Labs, it\u2019ll tell you the problem with smart security cameras is that they don\u2019t know what they\u2019re seeing. Those motion pings you get with other products? Defined by how light shifts in front of its sensor, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[99,110],"tags":[98],"class_list":["post-1198677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-engadget","category-unfiltered-rss","tag-engadget"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1198677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1198677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1198677\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1198677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1198677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1198677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}